Too many students at 16 Arizona schools have failed the AIMS reading or
math test, and now federal law requires state officials to step in and
push the schools to do something about it.

The schools must make changes to show progress on AIMS two years in a
row.

The schools will be required to pay more attention to each child's
academic needs, change what is taught in their classroom and how it is
taught. Some already have changed principals. The schools' staff members
will be required to attend training, and state officials will monitor
the schools to measure their progress.

Requiring schools to pass "Adequate Yearly Progress" is part of the
No Child Left Behind Act, the cornerstone of the Bush administration's
education-reform movement.

Four of the schools that have failed for four consecutive years are in
Maricopa County, and all of them made the list because a portion of
their students have consistently failed the AIMS reading tests: Isaac
Middle School in Phoenix's Isaac Elementary District; Challenger Middle
School in the Glendale Elementary District; Ignacio Conchos School in
Phoenix's Roosevelt Elementary District; and Phoenix Advantage Charter
School.

Despite the failures, many parents continue to have faith in the
schools.

Norma Quintanilla, 30, is a secretary in a lawyer's office and has two
children in Phoenix Advantage. She said her third- and fourth-grade
daughters, who speak Spanish at home, have made academic progress and
are reading and writing English well. Parents need to monitor their own
children's progress, she said. Quintanilla drops into the school
regularly, e-mails and visits with her children's teachers.

Mayra Gomez has two children in Isaac Middle School and said parents and
teachers must work as partners to make sure children are doing their
homework and understand what they need to learn.

"They know you are going to be working as a team with the teacher and
they're not going to get away with much," Gomez said. She encourages
parents in her neighborhood to do the same. Many don't speak English
well, but she tells them that many teachers and their classroom aides
know Spanish and can show them ways they can monitor their child's
progress.

Federal officials use scores from the state's AIMS reading and writing
tests to help determine if a school passes the standard. Most often,
Arizona schools fail Adequate Yearly Progress because too many students
fail AIMS.

A school can also fail if it doesn't test 95 percent of its students, if
an elementary school's attendance fluctuates, or if a high school's
graduation rate shows no growth. When a school does not meet Adequate
Yearly Progress three years in a row, federal law requires state
officials to begin helping that school take a harder look at its
weaknesses. In a school's fourth or fifth years of failing to make
Adequate Yearly Progress, state officials begin intervening and
directing more and more of the school's operations.

Tom Horne, Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction, said the
standard creates too many ways a school can fail.

Horne prefers that parents pay more attention to the way Arizona
officials label their own schools.

Schools can appeal their Adequate Yearly Progress decision. This year,
nearly 200 did so. That reduced the number of schools originally labeled
as failing from 384 earlier this month to 263 two weeks later.

Some districts, such as Phoenix's Alhambra Elementary, are still waiting
to hear. Six of the district's 15 schools failed to make Adequate Yearly
Progress. Alhambra Superintendent Jim Rice said he met with state
officials this week, and they assured him that they would recalculate
the data for five of the six schools. While the schools hang in limbo,
Rice called the meeting "somewhat reassuring."

Eight of the 12 schools that were on last year's federal failing list
passed the Adequate Yearly Progress standard this year. But federal law
requires all schools to pass two years in a row to get out from under
government monitoring.